


Fractured Moonlight

by ourwinko



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Character Death, Countryside Setting, M/M, Marriage, Past Relationship(s), poetry references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:48:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28451898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourwinko/pseuds/ourwinko
Summary: Yuta has loved Mark for ten years, but Mark was never the only person Yuta loved.
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Nakamoto Yuta, Mark Lee/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 20
Kudos: 83





	Fractured Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> FIRST OF ALL this fic wouldn't be here without the icon that is Elizabeth Bishop. You'll find her poems throughout the story, and I hope you appreciate her works as much as I do. 
> 
> Second, it wouldn't feel right not to credit the films that inspired this work:  
> 1) 45 Years (dir. Andrew Haigh) - this fic draws HEAVILY from the plot of the film; with several minor and some major changes.  
> 2) The Wife (dir. Bjorn Runge) - masterpiece that gave me insight on how to portray an unstable marriage that stems from troubled beginnings  
> 3) Reaching For The Moon (dir. Bruno Barreto) - an amazing film about Elizabeth Bishop, and the film which prompted me to write a fic inspired by her poems! <3
> 
> TW: This fic will be illustrating in detail the death of one of the characters, so watch out for that if it makes you uncomfortable.

>   
>  _“Hoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by.”_
> 
> _—_ Elizabeth Bishop

The sun isn’t popular in this corner of the world. 

Perhaps the only thing Mark ever hated about this place was _that._ Well, probably not hate. Hate is a strong word. Dislike, maybe? He always disliked the endless blanket of clouds that rolled through the sky to no end. 

He wishes he could grow wings and break through the cover, if only to glimpse the golden sunshine hiding so persistently beyond those stratus clouds. 

His hand is tugged out of his pocket, the leash wrapped around it tightening with tension as Rapunzel sprints toward a nearby bush. She’s the perfect puppy. Mark’s heart is completely tender towards her. He watches as she soils the wood of the poor plant, tugging her away before the pungent smell reaches his nose. 

At this time of the year, it’s fall, he thinks. Truth be told, Mark never knew when to separate the seasons. All he knew was that summer: hot, spring: flowers, fall: cold, and winter: even colder. 

It’s cold (not too cold), so it’s fall. Simple as that. 

Simplicity is the cornerstone of his life. In a place like this, a little town in the outskirts of a small city, simplicity is the constant. And how lucky is he to have found this place. All he wanted— _all he wants_ is a simple life, anyway. 

He enjoys the simple cottage they own, far from people, far from noise. He enjoys the simple walks in the morning, most especially the lush grass and the evergreen trees. The casual friends. The dinners in the city’s restaurants on calm, simple nights. He can’t ask for more. He’d say it’s perfect, even. 

But the sun isn’t so popular in this corner of the world, and that’s why it’s not perfect. That’s the only reason. 

Mark sees the boy long before he’d stepped onto the driveway of their tiny home, and he’d discerned who exactly it was just by the bright jacket slung over his frail body. 

“Jisung,” Mark greets with a tiny smile. “Mail today?”

Jisung’s eyes turn into crescents when he sees the older man. Mark couldn’t fathom why. 

“Ah, yes, for your husband.” The mailboy stoops down and dotes on Rapunzel, her tail wagging eagerly. “A letter, I think?”

“Oh?” They don’t often receive mail. That is, they don’t have enough friends or connections for them to be mailed letters to. Everyone they know is in the city. “That’s unusual. Anyway, you take care on the way back. The road’s a bit moist today.”

“Good day to you,” Jisung says, not before thanking Mark with a boyish grin. He continues down the path as he always does, disappearing behind the row of tall poplar trees that lined the road.

Rapunzel disappears into the house the moment they step foot inside, and Mark makes his way to the kitchen, where, as always, Yuta sits at the dining table as the kettle whistles on the stove. 

“I made tea,” Yuta says. He never did say good morning. He always had his other, mundane ways. Today, it’s _I made tea._

“You’re a darling.” Mark moves to situate himself in the nearest seat, his hand lingering on Yuta’s shoulder as he maneuvers around the table. He blows warm air into his hands as he sits down. “It’s getting colder.”

Yuta hums absently as he gently tears open the letter packet. Meanwhile, Mark pours milk into his cup, the copper liquid turning a murky brown. He adds one and a half teaspoon of sugar, nothing more, nothing less. 

The quiet is disturbed when Yuta gasps. It’s a soft sound, not even a full one. It’s a frail little thing, and it gets lost among the singing of the birds and the gentle lull of the breeze that shook the tree branches hanging over the windows. 

Mark waits for him to speak, waits for him to share the contents of the letter on his own. But Yuta’s eyes trail down the entirety of the letter once, then twice, and by the third time, Mark’s curiosity had gotten the best of him. 

“What is it?” 

“They found him,” Yuta says, clearly but not easily. 

“Who?”

“Sicheng.” 

Mark stirs his tea. Gently, he says, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me more than that.”

“Sicheng, I’ve told you of him, haven’t I? He and I… we, you know-”

“Oh-” Mark knows. He remembers now. 

“-quite some time ago.”

“Yes, I know. You did tell me.” 

_Sicheng_ is a foreign name. In all possible meanings. He isn’t from around here, just as Yuta isn’t. And Mark knew him as well as he knew the world beyond his tiny city and his even tinier town. 

“They found his body washed up on the shore, on a beach in Wenzhou.”

“Oh, god.” Mark sips on his tea. Just once, it’s still quite hot. For now, the cup serves to warm his hands. “When?”

“Ten years ago. It says in the letter.” 

“Why did it take ten years to get to us?”

Yuta folds the letter up. “Must’ve gotten lost on the way here. You know the mail system, it’s foul.” 

“Why you?”

“What do you mean, why me?”

Mark shifts in his seat. “I mean, why send the letter to you? Why not someone who’s next of kin?”

“Oh, Mark. Is that really important right now? I- he just-”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. That’s terrible.” Mark stands up, kissing Yuta on the forehead before heading to the stove. “I’m going to get breakfast started.”

“They found his body still preserved. Most of it, anyway.” 

Mark cracks an egg into a bowl. “Out at sea? That’s odd. Not impossible though, I guess.”

Yuta hums. “You know he always did love the sea. Funny, isn’t it? He died in the thing he loved the most.” 

_Strange,_ Mark thinks, because what comes to mind is their very own sea, just fifteen minutes away by car. 

“Do you want cheese in your eggs?”

Yuta sighs heavily, and Mark looks at him, pausing in his motion. Yuta sets the letter down on the table, and it takes Mark two blinks for the other man to rise and enter his personal space. Firm, calloused hands run up and down Mark’s arms as Yuta buries his nose in his hair. 

“Yes, thank you,” he says, voice husky like it always is in the morning. His lips ghost over Mark’s ear in the faintest of kisses. “I love you.”

“And I love you,” Mark echoes. 

-

> **Four Poems: I - Conversation**  
>  _Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring (1955)_
> 
> The tumult in the heart  
>  keeps asking questions.  
>  And then it stops and undertakes to answer  
>  in the same tone of voice.  
>  No one could tell the difference. 
> 
> Uninnocent, these conversations start,  
>  and then engage the senses,  
>  only half-meaning to.  
>  And then there is no choice,  
>  and then there is no sense;
> 
> until a name  
>  and all its connotations are the same.

-

You know how in books, hills and plains are often described as _‘rolling’_ and _‘endless’_? How authors wax and wane about an unending landscape of greenery—so pleasing to the eyes, so picturesque and tranquil.

Mark has that here. Right outside the kitchen window. 

Some days, he decides to test his eyesight. He counts the blades of grass as he rinses soap suds off of ceramic plates. It’s a mundane pastime, but Mark doesn’t quite mind. 

He’s staring off into that hypnotizing view as he’s chopping vegetables, and the rest is history. 

He gives a hiss of pain as the knife cuts into his thumb. 

The blood doesn’t spurt. It just oozes out of a thin, seemingly invisible line across his skin, and it drips onto the counter noiselessly. The crimson clashes horribly with the color of the dark marble. 

“What the hell,” says an alarmed voice. Mark turns to see Yuta in the doorway. “Mark, you’re bleeding!”

Mark sticks his thumb in his mouth, the metallic taste spreading over his tongue unpleasantly. “I was distracted.”

Yuta sighs, the ghost of a smile resting on his lips. He looks fond, almost. 

“Come here,” he says, already ushering Mark into the hallway. “I’ll fix you up.”

Yuta had managed to get them both into the bathroom, and he sits Mark down on the toilet seat as he rolls a bandage over his thumb. 

Yuta’s way of doing it was imprecise, but Mark didn’t say anything. Instead, he keeps his little smile on as Yuta cuts and seals the bandage. Yuta brings Mark’s hand up to his mouth, kissing his thumb as if it would make the dull, stinging pain go away. In a way, it did. 

Mark returns the favor and kisses the back of Yuta’s hand. “Thank you.”

Yuta kisses him on the mouth before standing up. 

“Are you going somewhere today?” Yuta asks. “You laid out your clothes a while earlier.”

“Oh, yes. I’m visiting the venue.”

Yuta pauses in the hallway. He blocks Mark’s path so he has to stop too. “Venue?”

“For our anniversary, honey.”

Yuta’s mouth drops open, only slightly, as if he was making the smallest of sighs, but Mark sees it for what it really is. “Right, the anniversary.”

Mark laughs under his breath. 

“Of course you forgot.” Mark pats him on the shoulder and gently pushes him aside. “Excuse me.”

“Hold on,” a hand tugs Mark back. He has no choice but to look at Yuta and those eyes he makes when he wants to be forgiven. “I’m sorry.”

Mark puts his hand on Yuta’s chest. For a moment, the heartbeat that pulses beneath his palm grants him some peace. “I’m not upset.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Mark’s eyes roam Yuta’s face. It’s perfect. _He’s perfect,_ he thinks. “Now unhand me. I have to get lunch ready before I leave.”

Yuta pecks him on the forehead and lets him go.

-

The venue isn’t really anything special. It’s just the same-old recreational hall, the only one the city has, and even though it’s old, it’s as elegant as ever. Simple but beautiful designs. Pleasantly colored walls. It’s the same hall they rented out for their wedding reception all those years ago. 

Ten years ago. Well, nearly. It’s still a week before then. 

The owner is some man named Taeil. He was friendly enough, although the number of white hairs on his head had increased since Mark last saw him. Still, his smile is just as wide, his demeanor just as mellow. 

“The hall has a maximum capacity of twelve tables, ten seats each. Would that be enough?” He holds a notepad in his hand, a pen in the other. Mark nods. “Good. Though, I should say that we don’t have our own stock of decorations, so you’ll have to consult another place about that.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.” 

It costs little, if compared to all the money that they’ve saved up until now. They’re halfway between elderly age and bygone youth, after all. Mark signs the cheque without a second thought. The booking is secured. 

_Ten years pass by so very fast,_ Mark thinks as he leaves the building. His fingers continue their assault on his golden ring, parts of it now dulled into brass. Time is such a fickle thing. 

-

“You asked why the letter was sent to me.”

Mark was reading a book up until that very moment. Yuta’s voice had jarred him out of his concentration, and he rests the book on his chest, taking his glasses off as he looks at his other half. Mark chances a look at the clock. It’s getting late, and he’d thought that Yuta was asleep this entire time. That is, until he spoke.

“I did.”

“We never married, though we’d spend nights pondering it. Nights like this.” Yuta’s voice is quiet, distant. Just as you’d expect when someone’s recalling a far-flung memory. “We’d sit- no, _lay_ in bed. He’d leave the curtains open and I’d ask why. He’d say that it’s so he can see the moon as he falls asleep.”

“You were telling me why they sent you the letter,” Mark reminds gently.

“So, I met him somewhere in Wenzhou. They only let two people stay in a room together if they were married, or if they were family. On the documents we signed—the uh, hotel paperwork—we wrote that we were married to each other so we could share a room.” Yuta sighs, and it’s a happy sound. It attracts Mark’s gaze. “It became a force of habit from there. Everywhere we went, we were married. By heart, then by paper. Not official paper, of course, but it worked.”

“Was he blonde?”

“No,” Yuta laughs “God, no. He was a brunet. You should’ve seen him. His hair caught the sun so beautifully.”

“Just like me.”

Yuta makes an affirming noise. Mark decides that he’d no longer be able to continue reading for tonight, so he slips a bookmark between the pages and sets the book on the nightstand. 

He lies down on his side, parallel to Yuta so that their faces were mere inches from each other. 

“How old was he?” Mark asks. 

“He was two years younger, though our birthdays were only two days apart.” 

“And you met when?”

“We met in Wenzhou fifteen years ago.” 

“So you were about twenty-three.” Mark would’ve still been in school by then. 

“Yes, twenty-three. And he, twenty-one.” 

Yuta’s eyes start fluttering close. He’s becoming terribly susceptible to dozing off these days. Mark caresses his cheek with a light hand, and not a while later he reaches for the lamps and turns the lights off. 

Even then, something still wards the darkness off. A sliver of light from the window, let in by the drawn curtains. Beyond the glass panes, there’s a full, bright moon hiding behind a thin cover of clouds. 

-

Cafes aren’t really Mark’s thing. The whole _caffeine_ agenda just doesn’t appeal to him. He never understood coffee and its bitter, sharp taste or its ability to create an addict out of one perfectly fine human being. 

And yet, he finds himself sitting in a cafe yearning for a cup of tea, not coffee. There’s an empty seat in front of him. The clock ticks a quarter past eleven. 

Yuta was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago. 

Mark waves over one of the servers. 

“Do you have tea?” he asks, almost shyly. “I’m afraid I’m not up for coffee.”

“Yes, sir. We do. Only green, though.” He had a mop of bright pink hair, though a dark brown was starting to break through at the roots. “Shall I fix you a cup?”

Mark’s eyes catch the server’s name on a tag pinned to his chest. _Jaemin._ “Do you use bags, or leaves?”

“Pardon?”

“For the tea.”

“Oh, for the tea!” Jaemin laughs. “What an odd question, I thought at first. Bags and leaves, what could possibly be the correlation, am I right?”

“It’s just that I find tea made with leaves to be better. It’s what I grew up with, must be the familiarity bias.”

“Well, sir, you’re in luck. We only use leaves here. None of that bag business.” Jaemin smiles at him before calling the order out to someone at the counter. “Would you like anything else with that? Something sweet, perhaps? We’ve got carrot cake as a special today.” 

“Just a slice, please.”

“Perfect. I’ll have it served to you in a minute.” 

Jaemin winks, a sweet gesture, not at all flirtatious. Mark imagines it must be one of his staples: to be sugary sweet, just like everything in this cafe.

Just then, the door opens, signalled by a rusty bell that still somehow manages to be of use. Yuta walks in, book in hand, and pauses to look around. He smiles when he sees Mark, and he greets the younger man with a kiss on the crown of his head.

“Sorry I’m late. I got caught up in the library.” 

“Perfectly fine,” Mark says easily. “What did you find in the library?” 

“Oh, nothing much. A book about the sea.”

Mark stifles a quiet laugh. “The sea? We have one fifteen minutes away. Couldn’t you just look at it?”

“Much more to the sea than waves and seafoam, dear,” Yuta says seriously. He slides on a pair of glasses and begins skimming through the pages of the book. “You know scientists know more about the moon than they do about the oceans?”

Before Mark could say anything else, there’s a tap on the window beside him. He’s greeted by Taeyong's grinning face, hooked at the arm with a more aloof Doyoung. Mark smiles and waves, before telling Yuta to put his book away. 

Not ten minutes later, they gather and sit together like a bunch of old friends who hadn’t seen each other in far too long. For a moment, Mark has to get used to two more voices than he’s used to.

“It has been _so_ long, hasn’t it?” Taeyong nurses a sickeningly sweet cup of caramel macchiato to his lips. Mark could _smell_ the sugar from where he sat. “I can’t believe your anniversary is already just a week away.”

Mark regards his cup of tea with quiet satisfaction. He doesn’t take sugar with green tea, so he could only imagine the dull green drink to be the exact opposite of Taeyong’s: unsweetened, bitter, nearly tasteless. But simple. 

“We saw each other recently though, didn’t we?” Mark asks. He knows it’s a useless question. Taeyong’s concept of time is much more fickle than time itself. That’s for sure.

“You know how he is, Mark,” Doyoung says. “He can’t get enough of you.”

“Well, that’s what it’s like living in this place. You make one friend and you miss them if you don’t see them at least twice a week,” Taeyong laughs. “So? How is planning going?”

“I dropped by to book the hall the other day,” Mark says. “It’s still quite pretty.”

“And Taeil, how is he? Must be lonely being single this entire time.”

“He’s alright, I suppose. I didn’t ask how he was doing.”

“That’s very you. Not a stickler for other people’s business the way I am,” Taeyong chuckles. Doyoung looks fondly at him. “Anyway, have you found something to wear?” 

“I was actually thinking of looking around the department store later.”

“The department store? Nonsense.” Taeyong scoffs, as if department stores and special occasions were two clashing worlds. To be honest, Mark didn’t much mind. “You know, I know a seamstress just two blocks from here. We’ll get you fitted and see what you want. We’ll dress you up so good Yuta will be wishing for a honeymoon after the party.” 

Mark holds back a smile, his cheeks heating up. He casts a glance at Yuta, who stares back at him with a smirk. 

“Won’t take much to do that,” Yuta says, and Doyoung whistles. 

Yuta’s hand rests on the tabletop, and Mark reaches out to place his own hand over it. “You’re a flirt.” 

“So who’ll make the speech?” Doyoung asks, eyes darting between the two. “In _unconventional_ marriages, and by that I mean heterosexual ones, it’s usually the husband who does the honor. And here we have two fine husbands.” 

“Yuta,” Mark says. “I’m not good in front of crowds.” 

“Can’t wait to hear it,” Taeyong says, pointing at Yuta with a buttered slice of bread. Mark watches crumbs litter the table. “And make sure it’s perfect. We don’t want to go to an amazing party just to hear a third-rate speech.”

“Taeyong,” Doyoung chides. 

“What, it’s true!”

Yuta doesn’t say anything. He only smiles in that way of his as a silent way of accepting Taeyong’s challenge. He hasn’t said much, actually. Mark refuses to comment on it, but he can’t say that he’s not bothered. Yuta’s there, but he’s blank, distracted, like there’s some unseen ghost whispering into his ear.

-

“What’s gotten into him?” Taeyong asks, linking arms with Mark as they walk down a crowded street. The topic of choice is Yuta. “It was almost as if he wasn’t even there with how quiet he was. You know what, he’s probably sick of you. It’ll do him good to spend time with Doyoung.”

“Sick of me?” Mark looks at Taeyong, genuinely confused.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Mark,” Taeyong laughs, making a noise of disbelief. “Ten years! It’s the stage in marriage that you start getting sick of each other, you’re even lucky if it took this long. And in a town like this, there aren't really a lot of avenues for escape, is there?”

Mark chances a look behind him, spotting Yuta’s back walking in the other direction. He disappears behind the sea of people in the blink of an eye. “I don’t get sick of him though.” 

Taeyong softens, looking at Mark with fond eyes. 

“You’re adorable, but you’ll see. One day you’ll find yourself picking after him like you always do, cleaning up his messes like you always do. And you’ll get sick of picking up the clothes left on the floor, of making the unmade bed, of washing the dishes always left in the sink, of wine bottles half-finished before midday—Then, you’ll think to yourself. _What the fuck did I get myself into all those years ago?_ And you’ll never know the answer.” 

“That sounds awful.” 

“Beyond, dear. Beyond.” Taeyong pats him on the arm, their elbows still linked as they turn a street corner.

-

“So should I still go through with the party?” Mark asks. The question had been plaguing him like an itch he couldn’t scratch, and he’d spent the last ten minutes trying to work up the courage to ask it.

“Of course!” Taeyong says. “You should.”

The seamstress weaves around Mark, taking his measures deftly with a tape that had been tattered with years of use. 

“If he’s sick of me, wouldn’t that be, I don’t know, rubbing salt in the wound?”

Taeyong stares at him firmly through a mirror. Mark squirms under his gaze. 

“Mark, things like this are important. It’s something to remember. Something that serves to _remind._ You know, people like _us—_ you and I—we know how important these things are. We already know the value of celebrating, what, _ten years_ of marriage? But your husband?” Taeyong makes a sound, it’s not a pleasant one. “He’s busy minding the trail he’s left behind—his legacy, what they’d write on his obituary.”

“Is he?”

“ _Yes._ Men like him, they’re too ignorant to live in the present. You and I do, and that’s why we’re fine. Him, he’s probably stuck in some bubble in the past. Go through with this party, trust me. It’ll remind him that he has _you._ Right here. Right now.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Now,” Taeyong says, fetching several rolls of fabric, to the seamstress’ dismay. “Pick a color. And no velvet.” 

-

“You’re out here?”

Yuta looks up at Mark over the rim of his glasses. “I am.”

A cool breeze wafts through the patio. Mark wraps his arms around himself. 

“Reading your book?”

“Yes, the sea book. The deepest point on Earth is in the Mariana Trench. A trench is, I don’t know if you remember, but they’re created by these movements in the tectonic plates-”

“Yes, I do remember, plate tectonics was the opening lesson for sophomores. I taught it for years. Subduction forms oceanic trenches, so on and so forth.” Mark sits down opposite Yuta. The sun is sinking behind the horizon, behind the clouds. Soon there will be no light at all. “The kids always thought that sea monsters lived down there.”

“But they don't. Just tiny things. These creatures called xeno- xenophyph-”

“Xenophyophores,” Mark says, smiling.

“Yes, those. Alien sea-sponge things.” 

Mark laughs. “Alien sea-sponge things. Will you still read? It’s getting dark out here.”

“No, I think I’m done for today,” Yuta says, rising with a huff. Mark rushes to help him up. Yuta’s knees always did act up when it’s especially cold. “My eyes are hurting.”

“Careful,” Mark says, and Yuta drapes an arm over his shoulder. “You should wear more layers if you’re going to stay out here.”

“I have you to keep me warm, don’t I?” 

_Yes,_ Mark thinks. _Always._ “Let’s get you inside. Old man.”

Yuta laughs, and Mark echoes the sound.

-

“You were quiet earlier,” Mark says, a whisper. If he speaks any louder he’d shatter the bubble of quiet that envelops them. “Are you alright?”

Yuta looks at him, almost _through_ him, and in the lamplight the wrinkles around his eyes seem to deepen. Mark’s thumb worries away at those lines, and Yuta gives in to the touch. They’re in bed—they ought to be, at least—and the clock ticks on deeper into the night and still, sleep evades them. 

“It’s also cold in the Pacific. The water,” Yuta says. His breath smells of brandy. “People always point to the Atlantic as the coldest ocean- I mean, it has icebergs, yeah, but the Pacific is cold too. We were at sea, when we lost him.”

“Sicheng?”

“Sicheng.” Yuta stares absently at Mark, his eyes roaming his face. “We left the hotel and got on a cruise, wild times. We were out at sea, far from shore. It wasn’t calm. Waves were high, but Sicheng was stubborn. Said he wanted to go and catch the seabreeze out on the railings and look at the moon. He was obsessed with the moon. But I didn’t let him. It was too dangerous. So I said, we’ll wait. We’ll wait for calmer weather and then we’ll go together. But he was impatient. Oh, was he impatient. The type that couldn’t sit still for too long. So he waited for me to fall asleep, and he snuck out of bed—quietly, he was very light on his feet. He was a dancer—and he found his way to those railings, and…”

“And?” Mark prompts gently, his hand pausing mid-motion. 

“They weren’t tight on security on that ship. So no one stopped him. He found the railings, I presume, and then he was just,” Yuta stops, as if frozen, as if captivated by a scene in his mind that Mark could only ever hope to imagine. “Gone.”

Mark resumes his careful ministrations on Yuta’s face. “He fell overboard?”

“Probably. It’s a ship, Mark, there’s only the deck and the sea to disappear to. I woke up the next morning, looked out the window. Said to myself, _oh, the weather’s better today,_ and I turned to wake him up, but there was no one there. Just an empty space. And I got up, stalked over to the next door and asked Johnny, a friend we made, I asked him if he’d seen Sicheng, he said no. Went to the dining hall, wasn’t there either. By midday they were searching the whole ship, _they_ being the captain and his whole crew, and by sunset it was certain that he was no longer onboard.” 

“And that was fifteen years ago?”

“Fifteen years ago.” 

“Five years, just floating out at sea,” Mark says. He feels something cold and odd in his chest. It’s that indescribable feeling when you discuss someone’s death in gruesome detail. “Five years, before he was found. That’s horrible.”

“I was saying that the Pacific is cold. In the book, the book from the library, it said that in cold waters, a dead body still finds a way to preserve itself. There’s this substance, it comes from the fat in the body. It protects the body from decomposition. It’s a slimy thing, I imagine. Waxy and soap-like.”

 _Adipocere._ That’s what the substance is called. Mark used to study the sea. He used to want to be a marine biologist. It’s funny, Mark thinks, that the very reason that they’re even having this conversation at all could be boiled down to some slime on a dead body. 

Had it not been for that substance, Sicheng’s body would have peeled apart like spoiled, rotten fruit, and drifted off in the ocean in a million different directions. Scattered for sea lice and crabs to nibble on. By then, he’d have been unrecognizable. And perhaps, his body would not have been identified. Perhaps the letter would not have reached their doorstep, and Yuta would not have had to borrow that book from the library, and their life would have carried on without the need for drinking brandy before telling grim bedtime stories. 

“Good night,” Mark says, reaching over to the lamp to turn it off. The sheets rustle as he settles under the cover.

Yuta fits perfectly against Mark’s back, and warmth seeps from his body. “I love you.” 

“I love you,” Mark echoes. 

He dreams of the sea, and an endless crashing of waves against a tormented shore. 

-

> **Insomnia**  
>  _Poems: North and South/A Cold Spring (1955)_
> 
> The moon in the bureau mirror  
>  looks out a million miles  
>  (and perhaps with pride, at herself,  
>  but she never, never smiles)  
>  far and away beyond sleep, or  
>  perhaps she’s a daytime sleeper. 
> 
> By the Universe deserted,  
>  she’d tell it to go to hell,  
>  and she’d find a body of water,  
>  or a mirror, on which to dwell.  
>  So wrap up care in a cobweb  
>  and drop it down in the well
> 
> into that world inverted  
>  where left is always right,  
>  where the shadows are really the body,  
>  where we stay awake all night,  
>  where the heavens are shallow is the sea  
>  is now deep, and you love me.

-

“Today, the catering,” Taeyong announces, with a bit more excitement than Mark had for himself. “Food is an important part of the celebration. Are you aiming for anything fancy?”

“No, nothing fancy.” Mark says, settling behind the wheel. Taeyong claims the passenger seat as if it were always his. It’s just the two of them today. “Yuta and I aren’t really particular when it comes to food. Anything will do, I think.”

“Bummer. At our reception, I think you remember, me and Doyoung had ribeye served. The guests loved it. Do you think Yuta will too?” 

“Yes.” Mark says, and Taeyong scribbles on a notepad. The gesture brings a smile to his face. “You seem excited.”

“Oh, you know I love parties, Mark. The planning gives me such a rush.”

“Lucky me.”

“Very lucky,” Taeyong affirms. “Now, on the topic of appetizers. A salad? Chicken caesar, thousand island dressing? Yes, that’ll do.”

Mark drives them down the road that leads to the city, half-occupied with hoping that the caterer will be able to meet Taeyong’s demands. The poplars by the roadside come and pass like a blur. The clouds are eternal. The sun doesn’t shine. 

They’re well into the city, driving by a park, when Mark catches a glimpse of familiar black hair crowning a man whose jacket was just at the coat stand by the door this morning. Yuta is sitting on one of the park’s benches, with what seems to be a cigarette in his hand. Mark stops the car at the sidewalk, startling Taeyong out of his catering economics. 

“Is that Yuta?” he asks. 

Mark’s already rolling his window down. “Yes.” 

He honks the horn once, and Yuta’s eyes snap up to them. 

“We’re on the way to the caterer,” Mark says as Yuta approaches. The older man pulls the backdoor open and slinks into the backseat without so much as a word. 

“Good morning, Yuta,” Taeyong says, briefly chancing a look at the man in the backseat. 

Yuta nods at him. “Taeyong.” 

Mark stares from the rearview mirror, focused on the cigarette in Yuta’s hand. It’s obscene, almost. The smell will hang off of the seats for days. Mark quietly rolls down the rest of the windows and continues driving. 

“How about the drinks?” Taeyong asks. “Wine? Beer?”

“Not beer,” Mark says instantly. He looks at Yuta’s reflection. Flushed cheeks, red ears. Mark’s already expecting an empty bottle of tequila when they get home. “Red wine?”

“ _Yes._ Bordeaux, perhaps?” Taeyong says, eyes sparkling at a million choices of alcohol. “A merlot? I know they have those down at the caterer’s.” 

“Merlot is fine,” Mark says, pointedly avoiding looking at the trails of grey smoke drifting out the rear window. 

“How’s the speech coming along, Yuta? I want to hear nice things about Mark.”

Yuta says something inaudible, and Mark glances at the mirror one last time before pressing harder on the gas. He hadn’t smelled nicotine on his husband in many years. 

-

“Happy birthday,” Mark says against Yuta’s lips, and the words are swallowed by a deep kiss. The taste of wine is sweet in Yuta’s mouth, and Mark finds it irresistible. 

“You’re an angel,” Yuta sighs, still holding him. ”You’re my angel.” 

“I’m yours.” 

“I’m glad.”

Mark leans back, Yuta’s face still being so close. Their breaths mingled between them. Their heartbeats pulsated in unison against their chests pressed together. Yuta’s arms stay locked around Mark’s waist, and when a familiar love song starts playing on the recorder, Yuta’s feet begin to sway them both.

“Come on, Yuta,” Mark says, whining. “I don’t dance.”

Yuta chuckles, and Mark feels the vibration on his own skin. “What a liar you are.”

“I’m serious, I don’t-” 

Yuta releases him, holding onto one hand. Mark feels his head spin as Yuta turns him in place. Firm hands stop Mark as his back connects with Yuta’s chest. 

“Yes you do,” Yuta says, breath fanning over Mark’s ear. “This is our song. Don’t you want to dance with me?”

Mark gives in, his muscles relaxing, his body loosening under Yuta’s melting touch. Mark lets himself be swayed, lets himself be danced to the song they got married to. In their living room, where the lights are turned down, replaced instead by candlelight, Mark is inclined to believe that everything is perfect. 

-

The night is young, the candles barely burnt. The wine had addled them, but that doesn’t stop Yuta from dragging Mark up the stairs in a feverish daze. 

Their hands already roam places restricted only to them long before they make it past the bedroom door.

Clothes are thrown onto the floor, forgotten and insignificant. More and more, until they’re bare.

The bed is made warm by two eager bodies, greedy for touch. This is affection in its most carnal form: lust. 

Mark makes sounds he never knew he could make, and Yuta revels in it. The sighs, the moans, the slapping of skin against skin, it all echoes off of the walls, meant only for them to hear. And only they heard. 

They chase release so thirstily, so fervently with a crimson-red passion that made Mark see stars. And when they reach it, it’s glorious. 

-

**Smoke Gets In Your Eyes**  
_The Platters — Remember When? (1959)_

_They asked me how I knew_  
_My true love was true_  
_Oh, I, of course, replied_  
_"Something here inside_  
_Cannot be denied."_  
_They said, "Someday you'll find_  
_All who love are blind"_  
_When your heart's on fire_  
_You must realize_  
_Smoke gets in your eyes_

-

Mark stirs from sleep at an ungodly hour. It’s hours away from sunrise, and the space beside him on the bed is glaringly empty. 

There’s rummaging beyond their open bedroom door. 

Mark turns the lamp on and ventures out into the hallway. He stifles a yawn as he walks up to the ladder leading up to the attic. It’d been drawn down from its compartment in the ceiling, and somewhere up there, Yuta’s preoccupied with something. 

“Yuta?”

The noise stops. 

“I found the picture,” comes Yuta’s distant reply. 

“What picture?”

“Of him.”

Mark thinks he feels his breathing stop. “You didn’t find it, you went looking for it in the middle of the night. May I see it?”

“It’s just a pic-”

“May I see it?” Mark finds his voice growing louder. 

“It’s just a picture, Mark—“

“May I _see_ the picture, please?”

“A fucking picture,” Yuta says, appearing at last in the opening. He reaches down, a weathered photo in his hand. “That’s all it is. Just a fucking picture.”

Mark takes it with trembling hands. The picture is simple enough. Faded colors, an oversaturated sepia. A man in stylish clothes for the time, with dark hair and a face worthy of being called art. Dark brown eyes that hide everything. 

Mark takes in a breath of air, the sound strained and pitiful. 

If he were to put a picture of himself right beside a picture of Sicheng, they could easily be labeled as birds of a feather. 

Mark sets the picture down on one of the ladder’s beams. 

“Thank you,” he says, labored for some reason. His vision is blurry. “Will you be much longer up there?”

“Not much longer.”

Mark nods and turns, walking back to their bedroom in some daze. He lingers by the doorway, catching sight of the moon beyond their window. An ugly feeling boils within his gut, and he closes the curtains with cruel hands. He slides back under the covers, but even when he closes his eyes, he could still see the image of a dead brunet man who holds a thousand similarities to a living one. 

The sun rises the next day, and it’s as if nothing happened. Mark fixes them both breakfast, and they have their cups of tea. Yuta breezes out the door with a yelled goodbye, promising to be back before sun-down. Mark doesn’t ask where he’s going. 

He spends the morning (and the night before, after what happened) thinking about that ladder and the attic and whatever Yuta’s hiding in there. 

Mark is wretched.

The curiosity in him has grown into something more than that—something ravenous and turbulent. Never in his life had an emotion so violently consumed him, that his teacup clatters onto the table forcefully under his touch, that the ceramics are handled with uncare, that his hands move so clumsily as if he had no semblance of control over them at all. 

Mark tries to look out the window, hoping it would placate him as it did so many times before. It did not. Peace could not be found among the endless sea of grass, not in the distant trees, not in the chirping of the birds. 

That’s how Mark finds himself sitting upon the weathered piano seat. His fingers ghost over the keys, trying to remember the notes. It’s been some time since he played the piano, and the motions of it seem foreign to him now. 

A while later, he’s able to find an old music sheet, and with once-deft fingers now trembling the slightest with uncertainty, he begins to play a song. 

_Liebestraume,_ the piece is called. One of Liszt’s best. It means _“love dream”_ or _“dream of love”_ in German. 

It’s strange, Mark thinks, that his fingers barely remember how to play it, and yet the story behind the music is still so very vivid in his mind. 

Liebestraume was created to translate two poems into music. The poems were quite special, and they talked about love in three forms: religious love, erotic love, and unconditional mature love. 

The third, unconditional mature love, implores readers to love as long as they can. It’s interesting, Mark thinks as he plays the song, because such meaning could never be gleaned from the surface, just from listening to the music.

But then again, things, music most especially, don’t have to have meaning. For all we know, we could just throw notes together in a coherent structure and call it a day. And yet, music (the pieces that matter, at least) seems to have an inherent quality to it—in that it must have meaning, or it’s nothing at all. 

It’s the same for dreams of love. 

Dreams are unweighted. Shards of shattered reality forever condemned to live in our minds, never to materialize in the real world. They’re insignificant, they’re not supposed to have gravitas. And yet, they do.

Forget all about religious love and erotic love. Unconditional mature love, whatever that may mean, is what Mark has found here. _That_ dream of love is what he’s worked so hard to make reality for ten years. 

_Love as long as you can,_ the poem said. Mark has every intention to. He’s tied down here. Tethered to this house, rooted to this town. Connected so deeply to this part of the world that shall his chains break, he’ll drift off into a void of unfamiliarity. Yuta is the weight keeping his feet flat on the ground, and the rings on their fingers that they wear at every waking moment is what keeps them both entangled so that neither of them will drift away.

But it’s even odder, because Liebestraume, for all its dreams and made-up meanings, is a song of two different melodies playing at the same time. Such was its structure, that two independent songs play together at the same time to create one masterpiece.

While one may attribute this striking observation to the way a marriage works, _“Oh, two different melodies creating a wonderful song, just like two different souls uniting in a marriage!”,_ Mark is more inclined to think of it, in light of recent events, as two different pieces of music that sound similar enough, just like two different people who look similar enough. 

_Yes,_ Mark thinks bitterly to himself. _This is about Sicheng._

Two melodies, one in the background, one in the fore. 

Two men, one in the past, one in the present. 

What a fucking _love dream._ Oh, but it wasn’t Mark’s love dream all along. It’s Yuta’s. 

-

Rapunzel barks at Mark the entire time as he pulls the ladder down and the attic opens up to him. The opening gapes shadows at him. Mark ignores the noise. It stops soon enough. 

Up in the attic, he feels around for the string hanging from the ceiling, and when he finds it and pulls it, a soft amber light illuminates the dusty room. 

There are boxes and boxes of old things, and Mark rummages through them, finding faded photos and a dusty journal whose corners were creased. 

The photos were of two people, mostly. Yuta, a much younger Yuta, and Sicheng. Their faces were frozen in perpetual smiles, mouths hanging open mid-laughter. Laughter that Mark could almost hear. Like the wood in the attic, the pictures were old. In fact, the color clings so delicately onto the glossy paper that Mark is left no choice but to handle the pictures with equal delicacy. 

Carefully, he shuffles through the stack of photos. The more he did, the more they became heavier in his hands, the more his fingers trembled without his consent. Even his heart drummed violently in his chest, hammering incessantly against the weary prison that is his body. The tremors ran through him like chills on a winter night, with as much force as the sea crashing brutally onto the shore. 

Sicheng, Yuta, Sicheng, Yuta—that’s all there is to see. That’s everything there is. Memories upon memories, dearer than life in Yuta’s eyes, captured in sepias, in unmoving stills, all thrown into one box. 

One box. 

Mark finds his world tilting all because of one box.

Mark puts the pictures back. He reaches for the journal. 

A lot of pages were blank. Even more were filled with senseless doodles and scribblings. The actual entries occupied little of the journal. 

_I never did understand your obsession with the moon. It’s just a lump of rock floating in space. But like most things with you, Sicheng, I don’t really understand. It’s part of your charm though, isn’t it? Your mystery._

_Everytime I look at you I want to know more. Everytime I gaze into those dark eyes of yours I want to dive in and drown. You pull me in, and it’s dangerous. But I never mind. Not if it’s you._

_You. You and your dark, brown hair. When the sunlight catches your hair it’s like there’s a halo around you. Like you’re some ethereal, otherworldly being. So real yet so unbelievably untouchable._

_That’s why you’re my angel._

_You, Sicheng. You’re my angel._

_I don’t think I’ll ever love someone the way I love you. And if I do, they couldn’t possibly compare. There’s only you in my eyes. You and no one else for lifetimes to come._

-

“Why do you think his body washed ashore?” 

Mark indulges Yuta like he always does. They lay motionless in bed, like they always do. He keeps the neutral look on his face. “Well, there are currents. It may have taken a long time but the currents brought him back to land.”

“Yes, but… Five years.”

“Five years, yes. What about it?”

“It’s a bit long, isn’t it?”

“He made it ashore in the end, didn’t he?”

Yuta closes his eyes, making a strained sound. “I’m just glad they didn’t send a picture of his body when they found him. I wouldn’t have been able to handle that.”

“Yes, I imagine it was quite gruesome.”

“No, no. It’s that he wouldn’t look the same anymore. You saw him right? Had the face of a god. Seeing his face so different… I can’t. Did I tell you how they were able to identify him? I think I forgot to tell you. Well, his ear. One of his ears was a little rough, you know. Like the elves in Lord of the Rings, if you remember.” 

“I remember.”

“Yes, an ear like that. That ear was one of the many little things that made him so-”

Mark reaches over to the lamp and turns the light off. 

“I can’t talk about him anymore,” Mark says. “I know I said I could, but I can’t anymore.” 

Yuta doesn’t say anything, except for a quiet “Good night,” a while later.

“Good night,” Mark says, abrasive. 

-

Mark drives to the city the next day.

Decorations and invitations. That’s the agenda today. 

Taeyong was all too happy to be seeing Mark for the nth time that week, and he’s eagerly ushered into their apartment not like a guest but like a long awaited family member. 

“The flowers, what kind?” Taeyong asks. He’s scrolling through a magazine with intent eyes. 

Mark only says what comes to mind. “Lavender? Primrose?” 

“That means a white and pastel purple color scheme. It matches your suit too!”

Taeyong is correct. Mark’s suit is a dark shade of purple, and he imagines it would go well with lavenders. 

“I want it all to be simple. Elegant, but simple. Just the flowers, the cloths, and everything else that is absolutely required. That’ll do.”

“Right, right. I’ve got you. Anyway, where’s Yuta? I thought he’d be coming along.”

Mark shrugs. “He didn’t want to come.” 

-

Mark leaves Taeyong’s apartment right before sundown, refusing an offer to drop by the cafe for coffee. When Taeyong accepted that no more of his day would be spent with Mark, he reluctantly saw the younger man off. 

Mark decided to stroll through the town center. It isn’t crowded, it never is. There were still people though. They strolled from shop to shop, each minding their own business, each with a secret burden to carry. 

He passes by the travel agency, the poster having caught his eye. A tropical island with a flashy slogan, written in bright colors that clashed with the background.

_Book the most magical trip of your life for half the cost!_

 _What would it be like to travel?_ Mark wonders. To see the world beyond the farmlands of this town. To break through the clouds on some metal monstrosity and see the sun in its full glory. To breathe a different kind of air. To see different people. To hear different songs, different sounds. To eat different food. To smell something else other than the baked dough wafting from the bakery down the street.

Mark’s feet lead him inside, and the place, despite having stood at the same spot for all the years Mark has lived here, is foreign. The air is cool, and it carries some gentle floral scent. The lady at the desk smiles at him in greeting, and Mark smiles back. 

“How can I help you today, sir?”

“What travel packages do you offer?”

“We have a variety of packages. Have a browse through this,” she hands him a bright pamphlet. Mark’s eyes start to hurt at all the colors. “Your name please?”

“Mark. Nakamoto-Lee.”

“Oh!” The lady smiles. “Your husband was in here a few days ago. He was asking about Wenzhou. Are you two planning a trip there? If so, we have a very lucrative deal.”

“Wenzhou?” Mark asks, but he knows the place all too well. The name, _Wenzhou,_ is bitter on his tongue. “No. No, thank you. Actually, I think I’d rather come back another time.”

-

When Mark gets home, he strides up the stairs in twos. Rapunzel runs after him. Frantic, he rushes into the bedroom, finding that it’s empty. 

It’s five minutes later that he’s completed a search of the house only to find that Yuta isn’t home. Mark ends up in the kitchen, pacing, on the edge of his sanity. 

He spots a box of cigarettes left on the dining table, and he stops. 

It takes only a second to find a lighter and light the little thing. Mark brings the cigar up to his mouth with an ounce of hesitation. But when the warmth fills his lungs and he stains the kitchen air with an exhale of nicotine-charged smoke, he decides that he doesn’t care. 

Yuta’s not the only one who can regress back into dangerous addictions. 

_Did Sicheng ever smoke?_ Mark finds himself asking. The question is potent enough to set loose the beginnings of instability within his mind. He wishes desperately for the answer to be no. 

_No,_ Mark insists. He refuses to be some carbon copy, some clone. Some convenient fake that’s close enough to the original. 

_Sicheng._ Fuck that name. Where is Yuta, anyway? Why isn’t he coming home? 

An hour passes, and two stubs lay extinguished on the cigarette tray. 

More than the frustration, worry eats away at Mark. His first instinct as a husband is to worry. 

_Where? wherewherewherewh-_

Then, it occurs to him. 

The sea.

-

It’s a convenient, fifteen minute drive, and Mark hated every second of it. He was right, the stench of the cigarette Yuta smoked in the car did cling to the seats and the linings. It smelled of him. Not like tea and mornings in bed, but of dull alcohol and burnt cigarettes. 

There’s no one at the beach at this time. It’s completely empty. The wind is harsh, harassing the surface of the churning sea, throwing Mark’s hair around in a flurry. He wraps his arms around himself to keep warm. 

He’s searching for Yuta, his eyes scanning every inch of the pale sand that extended before him seemingly endlessly, but he isn’t there. Not on the sand. There’s a dark speck wading through the water, the deeper part—and Mark runs.

“Yuta!” 

The waves are high, nearly as tall as them. They rampaged against the shore, crashing with a ferocity that deafened Mark’s ears the closer he got. It’s getting darker. 

“Yuta, come back! It’s dangerous!” 

But Yuta’s back stays turned, deaf to Mark’s pleas. 

His arms are held above the water to grant him some stability.

Mark takes his shoes off and dives in. The water is freezing, and it cascades over his skin. His blood seems to freeze in his veins. His arms paddle forth, bringing him forward with each stroke, his feet kicking with as much strength as he could muster, and even when his heart rebels against him, when his limbs falter and fail him, he does not stop. Not until his hand connects with Yuta’s shoulder, and they begin the journey back to shore.

Once they make it there, Yuta is like a dead body, limp in Mark’s arms. But he’s breathing, he’s blinking, he’s _alive_ , but it’s almost as if he isn’t there. 

“Yuta?” Mark says, voice trembling from the cold. “Are you with me?”

“I just wanted to go to the sea,” Yuta whispers. “I just wanted to see… him.”

Mark’s face is wet, streaked with seawater and now, tears. Both were salty, both made Mark feel cold. He tightens his grip around Yuta, “It’s okay.”

Yuta clings onto him, his fingers colder than the water soaking Mark’s clothes. 

“I’m so sorry, Mark.” Yuta’s voice breaks. Warm tears mingle with the coldness damp against Mark’s chest. “I’m so sorry. I hope you can forgive me.” 

Mark hushes him gently, hand moving in an up and down motion on Yuta’s arm. “It’s alright. You’re alright.”

A while later, they manage to get themselves in the car, with the heater turned to maximum and the seats soaking wet and sand-streaked. 

“I guess it’s time we talked about him properly,” Yuta says from the passenger’s seat. He’s turned towards the window, while Mark sits behind the wheel, his feet propped up on the seat and his chin resting on his knees. “For the last time.”

Mark doesn’t say anything. Instead, he stares ahead at the sea before them, a tumultuous black mass now. The sun set long ago.

“I never had a good relationship with my family. I left them as soon as I could stand on my own two feet. I had no one but myself. But when Sicheng came along, that changed. I had _someone._ And someone was there for me. I hated the thought of losing him so I never left his side, and went with him wherever he went. I was supposed to ask him to marry me the night after I lost him… He meant so much to me. So much that when I did lose him, I was inconsolable. I didn’t know how to cope with that loss, but I tried. I tried with every bottle of alcohol I could see and every pack of cigarettes I could smoke. But then you came and pulled me out of that hole. And what’s worse? Everything about you reminded me of him.” 

Yuta breathes in, and when he exhales, it comes out as a sob. 

“I should’ve stopped myself, should’ve spared you the lifetime of hurt I’ve probably buried you in. God, but I couldn’t. Your smile, your hair, your eyes, hell, the fucking look on your face everytime I told you that I loved you was the same. And for the longest time, I’ve deluded myself into thinking that this is what life could’ve been like if he just stayed in bed that night. I swear I wanted to forget him. I wanted to rip every memory I had of him out of my head because you deserve to be more than a replacement, Mark.” 

Mark hastily wipes his tears away with the back of his arm.

“And I hate myself,” Yuta continues, his nails digging harsh, red lines into his own skin. Mark reaches out to placate him. “I hate myself for not being able to see you for who you really are. For always seeing _him_ whenever I look at you. And I was able to manage it these last ten years, but when that letter arrived, it was like I was back at the beginning. It felt as if all this time, I was swimming up from the seabed, and just when I was about to break through the surface, I was pulled down again. I’m so sorry, Mark.”

Yuta looks at him, his bloodshot eyes as fragile as the surface of a calm sea. Mark brushes the hair out of Yuta’s eyes, his hand coming to rest on his cheek, The pale orange light hanging above them illuminates the ring on Mark’s finger, and the golden band glints for a moment as if to remind him that it’s still there. 

Mark uses his thumb to wipe Yuta’s tears away. Yuta leans into his touch.

“I want to make it up to you,” Yuta says.

“And how would you want to do that?”

“Let’s start over?” Yuta asks hopefully. It startles a laugh out of Mark, a quiet, delicate laugh that comes out in puffs of breaths. 

“It’s been ten years. Don’t you think it’s a little too late?” 

“Better late than never,” Yuta whispers back. “We’ll start over. You and I only. No Sicheng hanging over everything we do, hiding in the corner of the room like some ghost. Just us, no one else.”

“Just us, no one else,” Mark echoes. Yuta nods, a hopeful smile forming on his lips.

-

> **One Art**  
>  _Geography III (1976)_
> 
> The art of losing isn’t hard to master;  
>  so many things seem filled with the intent  
>  to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
> 
> Lose something every day. Accept the fluster  
>  of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.  
>  The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
> 
> Then practice losing farther, losing faster:  
>  places, and names, and where it was you meant  
>  to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
> 
> I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or  
>  next-to-last, of three loved houses went.  
>  The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
> 
> I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,  
>  some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.  
>  I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
> 
> —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture  
>  I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident  
>  the art of losing’s not too hard to master  
>  though it may look like ( _Write_ it!) like disaster.

-

Mark wakes up the next day to a husky “Good morning,” whispered warmly against his ear. When he opens his eyes, the sun greets him through the drawn curtains. 

“There’s tea waiting downstairs,” Yuta says as Mark sits up. “Breakfast will be ready soon, too.” 

“What’s gotten into you?” Mark asks, still blinking sleep from his eyes. Yuta only laughs, gently tugging at the sheets. 

“Come on, tea’s getting cold.” 

Rapunzel storms into the room at that moment, greeting her owners with very enthusiastic licks to the face. Mark smiles and lets himself be pulled down to the dining room.

Mark is ushered into one of the seats, Yuta telling him _“Just sit there and relax, I’ll take care of everything.”_ And Mark is only too happy to oblige. He nurses a cup of tea to his lips as he reads through the newspaper. 

A moment later, Yuta sets down a plate of eggs and toast in front of him. 

“If this is what starting over meant, we should’ve done it a long time ago,” Mark muses. He reaches across the table for Yuta’s hand. “Thank you.”

“I love you,” comes the chirpy reply.

“And I love you.”

-

Taeyong had booked them a limousine to and from the venue. The surprise was pleasant enough, and there’s nothing wrong with travelling in style once in a while. As the limo cruises through the town, Yuta gently taps Mark on the shoulder, presenting him with an unassuming black box. 

“What’s this?” Mark asks.

“Open it.”

Mark takes the box, casting a suspicious look at Yuta, who only smiles in anticipation. When Mark opens it, he lets out a small gasp.

“Oh, Yuta. It’s beautiful.” 

It’s a golden necklace that must’ve cost a fortune to buy, with a ring hanging off of it. 

“I have a matching one. Check the engravings.”

“Just us,” Mark reads. 

“No one else,” Yuta says. 

Mark smiles, and it’s genuine. “Thank you. I didn’t get you anything though.”

“Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter,” Yuta says, matching the look on Mark’s face. 

When they arrive, they’re greeted by a cheering entourage of familiar faces and loved friends. Mark and Yuta make their way through each person, never letting go of each other’s hands as they went. 

Taeyong regards them with an impossibly wide smile and Doyoung claps Yuta on the back. 

A while later, they get settled into the main hall. The food is served, the wine is flowing, and it’s finally time for the speech. 

Yuta stands up, and Mark squeezes his hand for comfort. He strikes a glass with a knife, and everyone turns to face them. The light conversation that crowded the air dies down to a murmur, and Yuta shifts on his feet.

“It’s time for the part everyone hates,” Yuta says, and good-natured laughter rings throughout the room. Mark chuckles. “I’m not good at giving speeches, but I’ll try my best. So. Ten years. It passes by, doesn’t it? You know Elizabeth Bishop, in one of her poems, said that lovers are like two pages in a book that read each other in the dark. And to be frank with all of you, that’s how this marriage has felt to me. Mark and I, we’re two pages of the same book, and I’m glad that out of all the other pages, we’re the ones that got put next to each other.” The crowd coos, and Mark hides a smile. _Dork,_ he mouths at Yuta. “Well, anyway. You read me like I read you. In the dark, where I can’t see, I know I have you beside me. I know that when I lose myself, there is someone else who can help me find myself again no matter how many times I may get lost. Truth be told, being here in this room today put some things in perspective for me, I think. I’m reminded that I am _so_ very lucky to have been married to the most wonderful man on Earth for _ten years,_ and Mark,” Yuta reaches for Mark, their hands finding each other. Mark looks up at him with fond eyes. “Mark, I want you to know that I love you so much. I love you.”

The hall erupts in a cacophony of cheers and applause, and Yuta kisses Mark’s hand as he sits down, tears glistening in his eyes. Mark leans over and whispers, “Well done.”

When the tables are cleaned of food and most of the attendees had drunk enough of the wine, the floor is opened up for the dance and the lights are turned down to match the mood. 

Their song starts playing, and Mark lets Yuta guide him through the motions of their dance. The necklaces Yuta bought for them dangled between them, like the moon and the tides, suspended in a push and pull motion. Just like them, forever pulling and pushing at each other, but never letting go. The engraved words run around in Mark’s mind, and he can only hope that those words don’t ring hollow. 

From now on, it’s just them, and no one else. 

-

> Close, close all night  
>  the lovers keep.  
>  They turn together in their sleep,
> 
> Close as two pages  
>  in a book  
>  that read each other  
>  in the dark.
> 
> Each knows all  
>  the other knows,  
>  learned by heart  
>  from head to toes.
> 
> — Elizabeth Bishop, _Uncollected Poems_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments are loved <3 find me on twt @/yunqisix!


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